


Grade 2 Akumas

by WanderlustandFreedom



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Child Loss, Explosions, F/M, Fire, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Real Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14675274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderlustandFreedom/pseuds/WanderlustandFreedom
Summary: The worst akumas came with the worst of times, with the hardest of emotions. They were the hardest to battle through, but they taught you lessons you never left behind. Marinette always had a hard time healing from the hurtful stories but never had she been directly involved in one such as this. Oneshot. Reveal subplot. Mentions of hard situations, but nothing graphic. Healing.





	Grade 2 Akumas

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking I'll rate this as T because it does mention rape, but it's not graphic.
> 
> I don't own Miraculous Ladybug.
> 
> I’d like to apologize for my indirect jibe towards LGBT. I was in the wrong and have retracted the statement from the work. Thanks to all who pointed out my wrongs.

The worst Akumas were the ones that were actually rational. The ones that you could relate to. The ones that actually had a reason for their hurt and sadness. In comparison, everything Chloe had ever conjured was simple, close-minded, and unimportant.

Ladybug and Chat Noir always tried to keep these akumas on the down-low. The people who went through what they dubbed 'Grade Two Akumas' were always distraught. They didn't need the extra attention being an akuma victim gave you. Most would need counseling, and some might go on antidepressants or drugs to stay away from the pain. It always hurt the two superheroes to know that they were some things that the Healing Light couldn't fix.

Ladybug had finished settling into her alternate identity by the second month. She was learning to juggle her two lives when the first Grade Two akuma showed up. She and Chat Noir learned the hard way exactly how awful these akumas were.

On a Friday night, 15 minutes to midnight, there arose a single, paralyzing scream from all over Paris. Everyone in Paris must have jolted awake at that scream. Before long, other screams began to echo through the empty alleyways and closed shops of the city of love. Woken from a restless sleep atop her maths book, Marinette shook the sleep from her body. Paris needed her to transform and investigate.

She never forgot what she saw.

A small girl, covered by a loose white dress, with chains clinking around her arms, was crying rivers of blood. Her beautiful white garment was already stained. She floated around, touching those left on the street. Once they felt her fingers graze them, they started screaming.

Screaming in fear, in sadness, in pain. Sounding completely lost, and afraid, and alone.

Chat Noir had beaten her there and was trying to engage battle, but this akuma wasn't interested in a fight. She reached her pale, bloody hands out as if for a hug, but every single time she was about to grasp Chat, he jumped away.

When she swung down to greet him, he didn't waste anytime greeting her, flirting with her. "This one's different." He told her. "I don't know where the akuma is. But she's so much more powerful than anything we've faced." As if to illustrate his point, the girl stopped chasing after people and put her palm on the ground. With an earth-shattering boom, the ground shifted and fell away. Chat grabbed Ladybug and catapulted her away to a safe spot. A crater had appeared in the center of the street, and there were more screams. Not from the people who'd felt the akuma's cold hands, but from those caught in the crater. Wounded and frightened people cried for help. She prayed her yo-yo would be able to fix everything.

She zipped down to where the girl was and shouted "Hey!" In the business tone. The one that made villains reveal who they were, that gave her an idea to how to unakumatize them. The figure turned, and Marinette saw her eyes reflected in the girls. A sadness filled her soul, and later that she'd learn the eyes had been mirrors to reflect the girl's pain on her foes.

"Don't let her touch you." Chat Noir yelled.

"Ladybug." The girl said. Her voice sounded like teardrops hitting the pavement. Like pain. "Why?"

Her words took Marinette aback. "Why what?" She asked.

The girl strayed closer, and Marionette took a step back. "Why weren't you there?" She cried. "It hurt, it hurt so bad and I cried for help. I cried for Mom and Dad, and the policemen, and for you." The girl paused for a second to wipe at the waterfalls of blood streaming from her eyes. "But you didn't come. Why didn't you come? Isn't your job to save? To protect? To fix broken things and broken pieces and broken souls?"

Ladybug took a step back. "Who are you?" She asked. The girl's hands were bloody from wiping her eyes. "I am Lost." She said. "And soon, you'll be too."

There was a cloud of darkness creeping over her and her muscles felt heavy and sore. She felt like she'd been fighting for ages, and she didn't want to fight anymore. Why weren't things easier? Why was it like this? She felt as tears stung her eyes but didn't know why she was crying.

The next thing she felt was pain.

Lost's fingers grazed the skin of her neck, and she felt pain implode under the suit; under her skin. All there was was pain. She didn't have the capability to feel anything else. There was pain for ages and ages, and the only other thing she could perceive was Chat Noir screaming for her.

She didn't have the strength to answer back.

When the pain began to fade (it never went away) she felt an encore of other emotions wash over her war-ridden heart. Disgust, fear, devastation. She felt insignificant, inadequate, and abused. Looking back, one thing kept coming back to her mind: Dirty.

She never could recall unrolling herself from the ball she ended up in. Somehow, she did. She stood up and put a foot on the ground, and walked around until she found Lost sitting on the front steps of the Louvre. Her head was in her hands and blood covered her. Not a square inch of white fabric remained.

Ladybug later remembered putting a hand on Lost's bloody shoulder. The pain didn't reappear, but she could still feel the effects coursing through her.

"I'm sorry." She had told Lost. "You needed me. I wasn't there. And it hurts you, a lot. It'll hurt for a very long time." She knelt down beside the girl. "I'm so sorry. But do you want to push your grief and pain on everyone else?" Because that was what she'd been doing; reflecting her pain onto everyone else.

Lost stared ahead with a blank expression for a few seconds. "No." She said. "I never wanted that." She stared at her empty hands. "I never wanted this."

The blood started to evaporate off her feet, up her legs and vanishing the soaked garment as it went. Up, up it went, causing the waterfalls to cease and everything to return back to normal. She was rejecting the akuma, and the power it gave her.

Ladybug watched in horror as a girl with bruised limbs and nothing covering her except a torn jacket appeared in Lost's place. Makeup smeared over a pretty face and blonde locks tangled with dirt. "Oh gosh." She gasped.

"M'lady." She heard the voice behind her. Chat Noir moved around her and she watched as he unzipped his outer jacket, leaving him shirtless. He draped it over the poor girl and then zipped it up around her trembling arms. It was so large, it came down to her mid-thighs, but Ladybug could still see red crusting around her inner thighs.

She looked away.

Chat Noir scooped her up into his arms and looked at Ladybug. His muscles were tight, tense, but overshadowing the sight was the broken girl. He didn't meet her eyes, having already realized exactly why this small child was in such a state.

"What should we do Ladybug?" He asked. For once he was without a pun. Ladybug took a few steps forward to brush the girl's dirty blonde locks out of her pale face. "Police station. And let's hurry."

It wouldn't be until later that they would learn the truth.

Someone raped Kelsey Ziddah Rogers. And that was the beginning.

They were grateful Grade 2 Akumas didn't show up very often. Between the minor humiliations of the Grade 1 akumas, Marinette took the time to heal from each story.

Like the boy whose parents never stopped screaming.

Like the sister who lost her twins in a fatal car crash caused by a drunk driver.

Or how terrorists killed a boy's cousin.

She'd forget the names, and the faces would grow foggy with time. But god forbid she'd never forget their stories.

After each grade two akuma attack they'd take the villain to a hospital or a police station. They listened if the victims wanted to talk, and did their best to help ease the ache. Sometimes, they hung around to be there. They provided comfort to dozens of citizens, like the small boy who'd watched his mother shot in front of him. Or the girl with the father who had never been there and now was trying to control her life.

Now, Ladybug and Chat Noir weren't superheroes, they were public friends. They helped everyone heal from the large-scale attacks and never judged or ridiculed.

And yes, sometimes they helped each other heal. After freeing a distraught mother who'd lost her baby girl in a shooting, Ladybug cried for hours. Chat didn't make a single pun, didn't even crack a smile.

And she was grateful. Her partner understood the things he wasn't strong enough to handle, she would help him with. And the things she couldn't stop blaming herself for, he would hold her and help her understand. Chat was endearing, and understanding, and calm when she wasn't. She began to see from these Grade Two akumas that she and Chat were the correct two chosen for the superhero roles.

The one thing that never changed over almost two years was Chloe.

And that she and Chat still hadn't revealed themselves despite two years having gone by.

Looking back, it was already a recipe for disaster. A chain reaction of bad timings and pent-up frustrations. It all lead up to the most catastrophic event in History since Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. Tikki would second that.

On a gloomy day in March, Chloe had been ranting again. Madame Bustier had led Nathaniel out of the room almost three minutes prior. That shouldn't have been a problem. Three minutes is not a lot of time. But unfortunately, lots can happen in a short amount of time. On average, 105 people die every minute somewhere on the earth. That's a minute to change a lot of people's lives. Something similar happened in class that day.

Within the first minute, Alya finished editing footage from last night's akuma. Said akuma battle was why Marinette's head slumped forward, as she tried not to fall asleep or drool on her book. Alya posted the video to the Ladyblog, and those in the class who followed it got the notification.

The last akuma battle hadn't been particularly hard, but it had been tiring. It was a matter of a man who had dumped his girlfriend and then flew into a rage over her being with another man. The only thing about the Akuma was that he was flighty. Almost as hard to catch and apprehend as Lady WiFi had been; with all her phones and WiFi-connected powers.

Alex had tilted her chair back and said: "It's a good thing we haven't gotten the bad akumas lately. Y'know, the ones where Ladybug and Chat Noir have to block off the public and stay behind for hours to help?"

Everyone nodded, including Marinette, who put away her book while the teacher was out of the room. It was a blessing to her that the Grade Two akumas hadn't surfaced in a while. She was actually able to sleep again. The last Grade-Two had been two and a half weeks ago. Chat Noir had told her last night he was now able to sleep without nightmares plaguing his rest. Marinette experienced the same problem, but all wounds healed with time.

Rose sniffed a little from the back of the class. "It's so sweet of Chat Noir and Ladybug. After Terrorist Chat Noir picked up a news van and put it on the other side of the city so the poor victim could be alone. They're so sweet and brave, the way they take care of everyone."

Chloe scoffed from the front of the room, and the mood darkened.

"If you ask me." She began. "All those akuma victims want is attention. Victims! Please! It's clear they only want to spend time with the cities' two heroes. It's the only way anyone actually gets to talk to the two, and to then have them around for hours on end? Who wouldn't akumatize themselves?"

Marinette lifted her face off the desk and stared at Chloe. Had she actually said that, or had Marinette imagined it?

"Um, Girl, I hate to tell you this but you're so wrong," Alya spoke up, waving her phone around for emphasis. "Ladybug and Chat Noir do that to protect the citizen, not to indulge them. Also, I've had the chance to talk with both of them, for a very brief time, and they're both funny and great jokesters. They're not serious by nature" Marinette turned to stare at Alya in surprise. No one had ever called her funny before. "Especially Chat Noir." Alya continued. Marinette nodded in agreement and returned her head to its place on her desk. She'd have to be content to allow her classmates to finish this debate without her.

Alya continued: "If they're serious and staying hours, then it's a super-serious matter. I mean, LB and CN have lives too. They can't always be superheroes. How many of you would take hours out of whatever you were doing to fight an akuma, and then be willing to stick around? Especially if you have, I don't know, work? Or school? Who knows, what if they're married and have kids to look after? It's super-serious-business."

Chloe snorted. "Please. They're going through and signing all the "victim's" merchandise. Taking a crap-load of selfies and then giving them a half-hearted warning not to do it again. Like that akuma back in February? The Suppressed?"

At this Marinette's head shot back up. She glared at Chloe. The Suppressed was a girl who hadn't eaten anything for days when the akuma had gotten her. She'd left home after finding out she was pregnant and lived on the streets for months. She'd had her baby in September, and then in February had left to find something to eat. She'd left her baby in what she thought was a safe place, only to come back discouraged and still hungry. Her precious little girl had died while she was gone. Frozen to death or some other cause, no one knew.

Her eyes narrowed, and she noticed that everyone in the room had become especially tense. That had been a particularly hard battle, but not as hard as fixing the problem. One of the policemen on the case had leaked a few details, and word spread. Everyone knew the few bits and pieces, but only Ladybug and Chat Noir knew the real story.

"You do realize," Kim said in a gruff tone. "That that girl's baby had died?"

Chloe shrugged. "So? I'll bet she strangled the little wrench herself, if only for the chance to see Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Marinette saw Adrien, Alya, and Nino move towards action; Alya to her phone, Nino to the door, and Adrien to his feet. But she beat them all there. She jumped out of her seat and raced towards Chloe faster than she'd ever dared move outside her Ladybug suit. She seized the perfect yellow collar of Chloe's designer outfit, and yanked up, hard.

Marinette may have been short, but she was strong. She held the girl several inches above her and shook her hard.

"What… is… wrong… with… you!" She screeched. "Have you no shame? Do you even know anything about akumas?”

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng!"

Madame Bustier had reappeared, a sullen-looking Nathaniel tucked under her arm. He made eye-contact with none. Madame Bustier put her free hand on her hip and started tapping her feet. "What on earth is going on here?!" She demanded. 

Chloe burst into a tirade. "She attacked me, completely unprovoked. She even wrinkled my jacket and was screaming in my ear!"

"She was going on about that akuma in February! The one with the girl who lost her baby! She said she only did it for attention and that she killed the baby herself!" Marinette yelled in defense.

The room went silent. Madame Bustier's face dropped a little in worry, and then she turned her attention to Nathaniel. The rest of the class did too, and no one would soon forget what they saw. Nathaniel was beet red, going purple by the second. He'd clenched his fists and was staring at Chloe with pure, burning hate.

"That girl," He spat out. "Is my sister."

Marinette felt her mouth drop open. She thought she'd had all the pieces, that she'd stow them away in her heart for the rest of eternity. But she hadn't known that that poor soul was Nathaniel's sister.

Chloe scoffed. "Well, if she's anything like you, then I'm sure I'm right."

Marinette found herself replaced by Nathaniel as he rushed forward and grabbed Chloe. Madame Bustier was still recovering from the emotional high and did nothing to stop him.

"You filthy, arrogant, pessimistic, brat from hell!" He screamed. "You think we should worship the ground you walk on when we all worship and envy the ground you don't! We envy it, it hasn't had to put up with you yet!"

Chloe tried to wrestle herself out of Nathaniel's grip.

"Don't be ridiculous, everyone adores me." She told him.

"Oh everyone!" He shouted. "And that's why Marinette – Marinette of all people! – was screaming at you a minute ago! And that's why I'm here right now?! No one likes you, Chloe! But you're too dumb to see the truth! Marinette likes everyone, and she doesn't like you. Rose is the same way, and she avoids you like the plague! Even mother-freaking Adrien can't put up with you for more than a minute! You're too deluded to even see that you act horrible! Even to Sabrina, you act horrible! You have no manners, no chaste! You don't even recognize yourself as a human! You think you're some sort of God! The only person in this entire world who likes you is your Daddykins because he's as twisted as you are." He threw Chloe into her seat before he delivered his final blow. "Even Ladybug wouldn't like you."

An explosion rocked the room. Marinette's eye widened in shock and fright. She, along with most of the students, found themselves thrown into the wall. There was a lot of heat and fire, and for a few seconds, only one word resonated in her head: Bomb.

A terrorist. More terrorist attacks - and this time on her school. Marinette could feel blood flowing from a new wound on her head and for a second was so dizzy she wanted to curl up on the floor and sleep, just for a minute.

Then someone started screaming.

Something had blown the classroom apart. A section of wall had ceased to exist, making the outside world known to the former schoolroom. The carpet was on fire, the chalkboard knocked down. From her place against the wall with her legs pinned under a desk she could see most of the damage. Madame Bustier had hit her head on her desk when she fell, and Rose, Juleka, Alex, and Kim were no longer visible. The only two that she could tell that weren't knocked out or pinned down were Adrien and Nathaniel. The former appeared to be in shock, but the latter was on the floor, screaming.

It took a moment for Marinette to understand.

Nathaniel was holding onto Chloe, screaming at the top of his lungs: "What have I done? Oh god, what have I done?" He clutched at Chloe's body as her charred hair fell on the floor. Her head was bleeding. And poor Nathaniel was screaming, crying his lungs out. “I take it back!” He wailed. “I didn’t mean it!”

Smoke drifted around, and ashes fell from the sky. The black akuma butterfly blended in up before it disappeared into the boy's chest.

Marinette, Adrien, and Nino all gasped. Alya was out cold, her legs pinned at a bad angle by the desk.

Nathaniel stood and his outfit changed to that of a prison Warden, themed in black. His skin changed form and hideous flaps grew behind his head until he resembled a slightly humaniod lizard. "I live in a cage, every day and all day. Soon, all Paris will know my suffocations." He announced.

He turned then and stared at the three awake teens. Adrien turned to dive towards a desk, but a cage appeared out of thin air and sealed him. It packed him tighter and tighter, and he gasped for air. The Warden laughed and reached out a finger. He drew it down Adrien's face, and the boy started gasping for breath. He struggled with the bars, to no avail, slowly suffocating. 

Warden laughed again and, seeming to forget they were there, leaped toward the outside. He vanished from sight as he crawled down the wall before he slithered like a lizard on the pavement below.

Marinette gasped as she let out a breath she'd been holding. Poor Nathaniel. Poor, poor Nathaniel. She wasn't certain, but was pretty sure that Nathaniel had become a Grade Two akuma. He didn't appear as powerful and smart as most of them, but the way the akuma has disintegrated into his chest…. If he wasn't a Grade Two, then the shirt held the akuma. That couldn't be it... the akuma capsule had to mean something to the victim. Alya's phone, Mime's photo, Animan's bracelet…

The Grade Two akumas never had these carrying capsules. Because the Akumas had direct influence on a person, they were never as strong in their hold. The simple akumas only influenced a person's mind. A Grade Two influenced everything about a person. Their thoughts, memories, body, everything. These akumas didn't have as strong a hold on their victims, but gave them incomparable powers.

It was a good thing that the Akumas couldn't get such a good hold on the people they were influencing. It meant the akumatized victim could have real thoughts, make real decisions. They could even choose to reject the akuma and its power. If they couldn't, Ladybug and Chat Noir would have had to kill the akumatized victim each time. Even if the Healing Light could bring a person back from the dead, Marinette wasn't sure she had it in her to kill.

But due to the weak hold, every single Grade Two akuma victim remembered everything. From the butterfly to the attack, they knew everything that happened. She wasn't sure what was worse: to go through what the victims did and remember everything? Or to have to kill an akuma victim and live knowing you were the person who ended it after they had endured so much? It was part of why she and Chat put forth so much effort in helping people.

Back in the present, Adrien still looked like he was suffocating. The air was growing thicker, and Marinette was finding it harder to breathe. The desk was too heavy for her to push off of herself. Nino, who was taller and trapped higher than Marinette, was choking as he struggled for fresh air. Abandoned on the ground was Chloe, her outfit charred and her head still oozing.

One of Marinette's legs twisted beneath her, and both her arms pinned around her biceps. One of her ponytails was gone.

Nino gasped a few times for air and then fainted dead away. He banged his head on the desk as he fell, and where there was contact with his flesh red appeared. Marinette shuddered and realized that unless she did something, they'd die.

She fished around her hips for her purse and breathed a sigh of relief when she found the clasp. Then she glanced back at Adrien. The boy was looking around, still yanking on the bars as he tried to get out. There was no chance he'd pass out as Nino had. She took a deep breath and undid the clasp. Tikki flew out. She observed the situation without a word and then turned to Marinette.

"Tikki." Marinette coughed. "Spots on." She couldn't flick her earrings, but the transformation still worked. She breathed a sigh of relief as the red suit faded over her in a flash of red, and felt the strength that came with it. As soon as red spandex covered her toes, she picked up the desk and threw it to the side. Alya and Nino both slumped forward, and she caught them. She choked as she realized that, trapped under the desk, was Max. She picked him up too. She turned around and met the bright green, startled eyes of Adrien Agreste.

"I'm sorry." She breathed out. "Don't tell anyone, I can explain later." She grabbed Chloe, Sabrina, and Madame Bustier and leaped out the window. The firemen were outside, and she carried them down and handed each person off, one at a time. Then she flew back up to the classroom, intending to get Adrien and the rest of her classmates out. She landed in the charred room and looked around… only to see Adrien was not there. The cage was nothing but a strange black powder that looked almost like... A hand landed on her shoulder, and she jumped to see her partner, Chat Noir, standing there.

"Chat." She said, almost crying with relief. Of course, he had destroyed the cage. She glanced down at his ring. Four paw pads. He followed her gaze.

"Ladybug." He greeted her. The way he said her superhero name made it seem like he'd never said it before. He looked at her with new light and then gestured to the room. "We better make this quick. I can't stick around too long. I took the model down to the firemen. We must have missed each other on the way. Let's get everyone else and help evacuate the other rooms?"

She nodded. "Okay. On your lead, then." His eyes sparkled a little. He grabbed Kim, Alex, Rose, and Juleka, and left Marinette turning over tables. Finding no one trapped underneath the wreakage, she left to the next classroom. She found Lila trapped under a desk with several other students. Dozens of shocked and scared students in surrounding classrooms were soon liberated. Thus continued the evacuation of the trapped and injured of the school. There weren't any immediate dead that she knew of, and she hoped there were none. She didn't want to have to help anyone else through a Grade Two akuma today. Poor Nathaniel was enough.

Chat never took his eyes off her. He watched her every move, everything she did. Finally, with everyone accounted for, she looked over and waited for him to call the next move. He looked at her, meeting her eyes, and then took her hand.

"Let's go get that akuma." He whispered. She nodded. He released her and together they catapulted themselves away from the school.

They found Nathaniel in the Spot of the Guillotine. The heart of Paris, near Concorde. Standing in the shadow of the Obelisk of Luxor, Warden stood, pointing people into prisons. Then, he would go slithering toward them, causing the each to start acting like Adrien had.

Chat was looking at her with careful consideration.

"Y'know." He said. "Nathaniel had the biggest crush on you as Marinette."

Marinette choked, despite the fact they were out of the building and now in the fresh air. "Wha – Wha- What?" She asked.

Chat took her hand. "Marinette." It felt odd to hear him say her name. "The akumas can still feel. Nathaniel wouldn't touch you, and you could free him."

It was a clever idea, one part of her rationalized. But the other part was screaming in horror. "How do you know?" She asked.

Chat smirked and brought her hand to his lips. "Adrien told me. You threw him into shock."

Ladybug flinched. "I- I had to save them. We would have died."

Chat nodded. "I know." Then he gestured to the ground. "Now go save him."

Ladybug nodded, then let her transformation go. She felt bare without the power the suit gave her. Chat took his baton off his back and extended it a little. She took the end, and he lowered her down into the shadows. Nathaniel spotted the movement in half-an-instant. In the place where so many heads had rolled, he slithered over to her. She felt the cage form around her and forced herself to stay calm.

"Nathaniel." She said as he drew nearer. There was recognition in his eyes.

"Warden." He corrected her. She shook her head.

"Nathaniel. Please. Don't do this." She looked up with pleading eyes. Nathaniel stared down.

"This isn't the artist I know. Why are you being so cruel?"

Nathaniel hesitated a second. "I live in a cage, every day, and no one notices. My sister isn't speaking and my parents do nothing. It's like I'm drowning, but I can see everyone else breathing." He shut his eyes and shook with emotion. "Why can everyone else breathe?!" He turned his head the other way. "I refuse to sit by any longer. It's not fair. If I have to suffer, everyone else should too."

"But Nathaniel, If everyone's trapped, how does that help you?"

He blinked. She continued. "If Chloe suffers, that doesn't affect you. If our class suffers, it doesn't help your problems. If I suffer, I won't be able to help you. Please, Nathaniel, let us help you." She reached forward a hand, holding it out for several seconds. Nathaniel didn't move.

"My problems aren't yours, and yours aren't mine." She told him. "I doubt you could understand mine if I told you, and I don't know if I can understand yours. But the trick isn't to know every thought running through a person's head. "It's being open. Being available." She moved her hand and wiped away a stray tear running down Nathaniel's cheek. Her body started fighting away the feeling of suffocation that came with the contact. Her body tremored with the leftover emotions from the previous akumas. Lost especially, since Ladybug never stopped thinking about that girl. Lost had moved past her experience and was with a guy who respected her and was to her what Chat was to Ladybug. Lost was getting married, and despite her experience, she'd concluded healing was possible.

Nathaniel reached his hand forward and put it on her cheek. The suffocation increased. "Do you think…" He whispered. "That you could ever love me?"

Marinette thought about the question, then said: "No, I couldn't." Nathaniel drew back as if she'd shocked him. She started speaking again.

"I couldn't steal your chance of having someone who you understand and who understands you. I couldn't take away the experience of trying to be who they need you to be, and having to work together."

Nathaniel stared at her for several more seconds. Her chest felt like she had a load of lead on it, but she reached forth her hand. He stared for a few more seconds, then took it. The cage and the suffocation vanished, and the black started to melt off him. She'd seen it several times in Grade Two Akumas. She watched as the butterfly melted out of his chest. She let go long enough to transform and purify the butterfly. Nathaniel watched her with surprise, but then nodded and whispered: "I had a feeling it was you."

Chat dropped down from the roof. He took Nathaniel and supported him. Ladybug and Chat Noir delivered their patron across the city of Paris. They sat and talked with him for an hour before his grandparents came. He thanked them and told them they could leave now; that it was alright, he would be fine.

"My mother started battling cancer after my sister left." He told them. "And dad got laid off so I had to try to find a job to support them. Now my sister’s back and battling her demons and Dad drank himself to death in a ditch. Mom's losing her fight, and it's tough. But you're right. Trapping everyone else like I was... it won't bring him back, cure Mom, or chase my sister's demons away."

Chat had put a hand on Nathaniel's shoulder. "You can talk to us anytime." He said. "And you have wonderful friends who would love to help you. Don't throw everything on yourself." Nathaniel had nodded, then threw himself onto Chat Noir, and cried his heart out for a few minutes. Ladybug kept her distance, and let them their moment. When Nathaniel left, he didn't look back. He was ready to move on.

Chat and Ladybug went and sat on the Eiffel Tower, overlooking Paris. They watched the smoke thin, and finally stop around the school. The sun started approaching the horizon before Chat broke the silence.

"Y'know, the Eiffel Tower opened 121 years ago. That's 121 years that it's been overlooking our beautiful city." He looked over at her. "D'ya ever think about who else sat here like we do now?"

Marinette dropped her head onto Chat's shoulder and dropped her transformation. She slipped off her shoes and waved her bare feet in the air. "I dunno." She said.

Chat watched her kick her feet.

"I never saw Adrien at the school." She said. "And I was gone for less than a minute. We should have seen each other."

He did nothing. "But we didn't." He whispered. She nodded.

"That means you would have had to have already been there, to get there so fast. But that still doesn't explain what happened to Adrien. He was there when I left. The only other conscious person in the room."

Chat nodded. "Yes, he was."

"You weren't there, but he was. And then you were there, but he wasn't."

Chat smirked a little. "What are you trying to get at, Purrincess?" She slapped him in a good-natured manner for the pun. Then Marinette continued. "It's not possible for you to be in the same room as Adrien, is it? Sorta like how it's not possible for Marinette to be in the same room as Ladybug?"

He nodded again. "Similar." He shot her a lopsided grin and put his arm around her shoulders. She took his hand over her shoulder and brought it back down. Then she examined each of his short, skinny fingers through his glove. His miraculous sat on his fourth finger. She held up her own hand to Chat's and observed how her fingers were long and delicate. Good for crafting and designing. His were blunter and looked more for practical matters. She spread his hand out beside her, then grasped the ring. She slid it off his hand and watched as the suit faded. He tensed beside her, but she slid it back into place.

"I'm not gonna take your miraculous." She chuckled. She dropped his hand and turned to him, but she didn't see him. His eyes were on her, but hers were focusing on the ground. A good 300 meters down.

"Marinette." The voice sounded familiar to her without the aid of magic covering it up. A hand covers her own, and then she finally lets her eyes drift up.

Adrien Agreste is smiling at her, and there has never been a more beautiful sight.

Marinette and Adrien's alternate identity's never left their small circle of friends. They and they friends grew up and paired off. Nothing was ever easy, but they knew how to keep looking forward and how to keep their confidence.

Chloe had woken up in the hospital suffering severe partial memory loss. Her frustrations mounted when she returned to school after the terrorist attack. She remembered things she had liked, things she hadn't. For the life of her though, she couldn't remember why everyone hated her so much. Why were they avoiding her?

Nathaniel had taken Marinette/Ladybug's advice to heart. Once he realized Chloe was suffering, he did his best to help her. Though ostracized by the school, he did his best to help explain to Chloe everything she needed help with. and sit with her at lunch, in class, and at every social event they had. Chloe, as it turned out, was grateful. Over time, the two fell in love and got married. They discovered that there was no such thing as a happily-ever-after. The two had their disputes and fights, but they learned to work through their problems. They always came out stronger for it. Nathaniel became a software designer and also drew beautiful pictures of his wife. Chloe often framed the things he gave her and hung them on the walls of their home. The three children they later had grew up surrounded by his art.

Nino and Alya had dated off and dated on. They had different ideas, and dreams, and that made it hard to have a stable relationship. Nino left to Macedonia and then to Greece for a year, DJ-ing and making money; meeting people and living it up. Alya gained international attention for work in social and political problems. She traveled to Ethiopia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on several service collaborations. During the 2016 American Presidential Election, she went to the U.S and reported for CNS. She dated a few boys and girls. She participated in the Women's March during Trump's Inauguration. She left the U.S. not long after and returned to Paris. She and Nino met back up and went on a trip together for Central America. They got married while there and stayed away several years. When Alya got pregnant, they decided to come back to Paris. Alya sufficed her thirst for news being a general reporter around Paris as she raised her kids.

Though Gabriel Agreste never learned of his son's double life, Tom and Sabine did after Warden. They spent a solid five hours wandering around. They dealt knowing they'd accounted for every student in the school except those two. The firemen combed the school three times after Ladybug and Chat Noir departed to no avail. Tom and Sabine refused to leave the site without some sort of closure.

At half past nine o'clock at night, Marinette and Adrien walked up the street from the bakery. It was the first time Marinette ever saw her dad cry. The two had demanded a reason for their absence, and before her parents knew all. They were proud of their daughter for all she did, and they supported her, even if they always worried.

Marinette grew up and proved to be an ample and talented designer. Gabriel Agreste hired her and she moved through the company with lightning speed. When Gabriel retired, he left the company to Adrien, who handed over reigns to Marinette. In the spring of 2019, he asked Tom for permission to marry her and proposed as Chat Noir.

She said yes.

Years later, people were still getting akumatized. Ladybug and Chat Noir were still there. Complete with easy banter, clever puns, and the solemnity each Grade Two Akuma brought. When they finally hunted down Hawkmoth and unveiled him to the public, they never laid a single hand on him. They only let the people he'd taken advantage of over all the years have him. Lost, aka Kelsey Ziddah Rogers had been among the first to lay their hands on him.

Nathaniel never laid a finger on him, only glared as hordes of akuma victims swarmed him.

They never revealed themselves to Paris, and never left without helping everyone.

Everything was calm, all was well.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my two best friends. They have a lot of the problems I incorporated in as akuma back stories.
> 
> Please review!


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